


The Rest

by CinnamonrollStark



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Character Death, Family, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Peter, Loss, Love, Memories, Parent Tony Stark, Sad, Tony Stark Dies, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-10 01:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18649777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnamonrollStark/pseuds/CinnamonrollStark
Summary: Four years of loving a daughter and morning a son. It's all faded away, now, but the memories will last forever.





	The Rest

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still feeling big oof energy off of endgame. I'm just really sad lol. So, welcome to the grief piece.

They say it comes in flashes, blips of memories, long forgotten, forged from flame and regurgitated in the fleeting moments of death. They are wrong.

For Tony, it's as warm and gentle as the sun as it sets across the rippling waves of the lake outside his home, and just as wonderfully drawn out. The pain he feels is minuscule in comparison to the comfort the swell of love he feels coursing through his blood as it comes to a stop in the traffic of his heart. A part of him can still see it: Peter, Pepper, and Rhodey, openly crying around him. Pep draws her hand across the contours of his uninjured cheek. " _We'll be okay, Tony. You can rest now_."

Something in his heart stings, the sharp emotion of regret intermingled with absolute peace. He wants to say, " _I'm never really leaving,_ " or, " _I love you,_ " or, " _Don't let her forget,_ " But he is gone, an unconscious part of him is aware of that. His body goes limp and his head falls slack, and Pepper kisses his cheek through tears. Peter audibly sobs in horror and shock as Rhodey pulls him into his armored embrace.

_Don't cry,_ Tony's spirit whispers, _It's okay. You'll be alright._

And just as his breath falls empty from lungs no longer there, Tony can see her.

Wandering hands the feel for comfort against the sides of her crib. Morgan is always looking for touch, for skin, for her mother or father. Tony is, in Pepper's opinion, Morg's favorite, as the infant is unabashedly a daddy's girl. Tony's hands find her sides and he lifts her, a firm but gentle grip under her shoulders. He takes her and holds her close to his chest. letting her ease in unbroken sleep into the smell and feel of him. It's instantly calming, and her flailing ceases. She is okay, in the arms of her father.

_There's two things I know for sure_ , he sings to her, quietly,  
 _She was sent here from heaven_  
 _And she's daddy's little girl_

And for a brief moment, she wakes, the hums and coos of a baby jolted from a deep sleep. She does not cry, and as she falls asleep, Tony continues to sing.

Perhaps she will not remember this, but it will live within Tony forever.

He practically smothers her in toys as she grows. Tony had promised himself that he wouldn't spoil her, but it's much easier said than done. Every small and insignificant thing he was refused in childhood, he treats Morgan to. He treats them as best he knows how, and sings to her each night to soothe her. This becomes a habit over the four years he gets with her.

Tony refuses Pepper's help on styling Morgan's hair. He refuses to enter the public light as often as he can, but when, at times, they venture to banquets- the biggest of which is organized by Tony himself, a fundraiser for the kids of the snap left without parents or caretakers- he will help Morgan pick out a pretty dress, far too adorable to be allowed, and do her hair. He likes it best when he puts pigtails in her hair, as they stick straight up in awkward tufts. On the night of the banquet, Morgan wears a pint-sized purple ballgown, and Tony does is signature dad pigails, adorning them with pink elastic hairbands.

" _You're perfect, Maguna. Absolutely perfect_."

And he does think about Peter, more often than he'd like. There is a part of him that wishes he could forget, as it is so unbearably painful to remember what all he'd lost. He tells Morgan that this is her brother, and that she would've loved him. Pepper never corrects him, and, in fact, helps Morgan purchase a picture frame and print out a photograph of Peter and Tony. They give it to him- a present from his daughter- on fathers day. The moment he sees the photograph, he bursts in to tears. Morgan hugs him around the waist and asks why he's crying. He tells her that he really, really loves the gift.

When Tony knows it's time, and knows that in that, it is also _his_ time, he records a goodbye message to the general public, and one, as well, for each of the most important people in his life. He tells Morgan he loves her 3000, and when the recording ends, he wipes the tears he hid from the camera and takes a deep breath. He is going to die, and he knows that. He hopes that in time, Morgan will forgive him, and that her capacity of understanding does not quite disclose what all this loss may mean just yet.

They say your life flashes before your eyes, but as Tony's life comes to a close, he is welcomed into the arms of memories that will live on through him and through those around him in years to come. He will never be truly gone. He is Pepper's, and Morgan's, and Peter's, and Rhodey's, and all those that love him. They own the memories that made him what he is, and as the energy that Made up Tony Stark disperses into what comes next, he knows,

They will be okay.

It is time to rest, and what's left is up to them.


End file.
